| August 12, 2006 - Finding my past through DNA |
| Dear Friends, recently I decided to participate in the National Geographic Genographic Project. You order a kit from them, take a cell sample from your cheek, designate whether to research the matrilineal or patrilineal genes, and then wait 8 weeks for the results. The results won't tell you that you belong to the House of Windsor, but rather will map out for you your ancestors' migratory routes through the centuries. I think it'll be really interesting; particularly since my mother's side of the family has always made claims to being related to Native American princessess (NAP's) and famous French philosophers. We'll see if there's any Native American or French blood there. Once you get the results you can then submit them to public databases where other people have submitted their genetic codes. You can then search on codes to see if any are close matches to yours and if you find some, then you're related to those people. I read an article about a genealogist who submitted her data and located a guy in Poland that she was related to. So I was telling a friend of mine, Carl, about this and we were talking about how great it would be to find you had royal blood. But then we started talking about how horrible it would be to find you're related to someone notorious. I said, "With my luck, I'll get a letter from someone saying, 'JOHNNYLEEN, I believe you and I are related. I want to let you know that my family traces its roots back to Mary Queen of Scots'...scullery maid.' Or I'll turn out to be related to Charles Manson and get an invitation to his next parole hearing." Well, after going on in this vein for a while, we both agreed it would be truly dreadful to discover a relationship with Hitler. So I told Carl that Hitler actually has grand nephews living in the U.S. I've read a couple of articles about them that had snapshots of them as teenagers, but their names were omitted, for obvious reasons. So I said to Carl, "How do you tell your son that he's related to Hitler? I mean, when is really a good time for that kind of news?" And Carl admitted that it would be a touchy subject. And I said, "Well, I imagine the kid is around 8 and Dad comes into his room and says, 'Son, it's time you knew something. There is no Santa Claus....andbythewayyou'reHitler'sgrandnephew, good night.'" Well, that made us roar with laughter and Carl said it would make a good "Saturday Night Live" skit or something for Letterman to do; kind of like The Church Lady. But then I had a sobering thought. "Carl," I said, "What if they discovered that my DNA isn't human? Within minutes government forces would swoop down on me and whisk me off to an underground lab of horrors for vivisection!" So, dear Friends, I hope that you'll keep your fingers crossed for me that I'm 100% human! And when I eventually submit my results to those public databases, please pray that I'm not related to Hitler, Charles Manson (or Marylin Manson for that matter), Vlad the Impaler, Atilla the Hun, or Britney Spears. Next entry Previous entry Go to diary entries Go back home |